One night last fall, I was walking through Chinatown in Washington, D.C., with my friend Terryn. We were not far from a dude who was in his mid-20s — slim, with neat, shoulder-length locks, skinny chinos, loafers and a leather briefcase slung across his torso — standing on the corner, his arm raised skyward. He was trying without luck to hail a cab.
That doesn't mean there weren't cabs around; in fact, there was one a few feet from him, waiting at the light with an empty back seat and its "For Hire" sign turned on. The driver gave the young man a hard, thorough once-over before turning his head away as if he hadn't seen the hail — as if we all hadn't seen him see the hail. The light turned green. The taxi driver pulled off.
Skinny Pants Guy looked at Terryn and me. He pointed to his chinos.
"If I was carrying a gun, where could I even hide it?" he said to us in exasperation. We all chuckled and shook our heads with more than a little shared resignation and recognition. But now, to avoid these curbside dramas, Skinny Pants Guy and a whole lot of other black and brown folks can turn to ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. A few taps on your phone, and boom — a livery driver or someone in his own car picks you up in a few minutes at your location. These services are touting themselves as providing all the conveniences of a car but none of the headaches, including profiling by race and location. "With 4 in 10 Uber trips starting or ending in neighborhoods underserved by taxis, Uber is ensuring that no rider is rejected because of who they are, where they live or where they want to go," Taylor Bennett, an Uber spokesman, told me on Monday.
[For more of this story, written by Gene Demby, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/codes...g-snubbed-by-cabbies]
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